Friday, March 7, 2014

Today was our last day, y'all, and after a long day of seein' houses and puttin' up blinds, we high-tailed our keister's down to the Smokin' Pig Barbecue, y'all. Hot jimmy-johns, that food was absolutely divine! We all near ate as much as a sweatin' hog in summertime, y'all! Yeehaw, see y'all next year!

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Today the team went to the original work site and finished our part of the house. Jessica and Lauren worked on hanging up blinds through out the house, while Jaryth and Emily put tile down in the master bathroom. Becka, Steph, and Gina finished the wood flooring in the living room. Stephanie and Kate helped tape up the hardwood floor to keep it protected during the process of moving cabinets.

After our lunch break the team was able to meet with a habitat for humanity home owner, Deborah, and hear her story. She went into detail about the process of applying for and being accepted into a habitat home and talked of how grateful she was for being able to live in one of their homes and look to those involved with habitat as a family. While tiling the bathroom, Jaryth and Emily worked with a man named David who was very inspiring and gave a breath of fresh air to everyone working. He seemed to really support everyone and want to hear every single persons story and future plans after college. David showed the team how a true habitat for humanity worker should act and how amazing it is to know those you are working with.

After working at the house the team went out shopping in the town and stocked up on some Clemson gear to bring home and help us to remember our time here. Following our small shopping spree we were blessed with an amazing dinner provided by the First Baptist Church of Clemson college youth team. The food was absolutely amazing and so was the company. We were able to split up and talk to some of the college students involved in the youth group and their youth pastor.

The kids from the area were kind and welcoming at dinner. Everyone had a good time learning about the college kids from the area and learning about fun local places to go. One of the members from the youth group was even kind enough to invite our group to a young adults service at Clemson University. After dinner, a few of the team members were able to participate in a worship service with the church youth group, involving singing and a sermon. A couple of the team members followed the church's college students to the Clemson young adults service. It was packed with many people and a full worship band and sound system. The night ended with watching the Hunger Games and reminiscing about our day.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Instead of working on the house today we helped out at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Easley, SC. We arrived around 9 am we were greeted by three friendly men named Bruce, Lester, and Duke.The ReStore is supplied with a number of items such as stoves, sofas, tables, books, jewelry, alarm clocks, etc. similar to the Salvation Army. The ReStore depends on donations and every item is used. Once the items are cleaned they are put on the shelves at discounted prices. Because they are open only Thursday, Friday, and Saturday people rush to the store at opening on Thursday. Bruce compared it to "Wal-Mart on Black Friday" so you can just imagine how packed it gets. We were all assigned to different duties including cleaning the garden, polishing items, checking for missing items, and measuring Christmas lights, but our main assignment was to get half the floor washed, buffed, and waxed. It's a lot harder than it looks! We started by first moving all the furniture to one side of the room. Then sweeping, mopping and buffing the floor before applying the wax. The buffer was definitely the most difficult. Our saying of the day was, "I'm the boss!" The workers got a kick out of that! We concluded that that was the only way that you were able to control the buffer, otherwise, he controlled you and that just did not end well. It took a while to get the hang of it and we know for sure that we will be sore tomorrow!

Around 12:15 ish our hunger pains really started to kick in. We sat at a long table while Cindy talked about Habitat for Humanity and what makes one an eligible applicant. Potential homeowners need to fill out extensive paperwork and demonstrate need before they are approved. A common misconseption s We were so hungry we passed a small 50 cent bag of Fritos around the table. Our lunch finally came which was prepared by Laurie, Bruce's wife. The lunch was homemade sloppy joe and it was the best sloppy joe I've ever had. Most of us had seconds.

After lunch time flew by, we finished waxing the floors, got awesome ReStore shirts, and took our group picture. Around 3 pm our work day was over and we headed to Clemson for our showers. Around 5:15 pm we headed downstairs to the Family Life Center where we enjoyed delicious chicken alfredo, salad, and mango pineapple cake that was provided by the First Baptist Church (where we are staying).

In order to maintain our figures we walked around town and checked out Clemson University. Unfortunately, most of the small stores were closed but the whether was perfect for walking. We got to explore campus and see the football stadium and their gigantic library. Once we got back we ended our day by watching Despicable Me and drinking delicious coffee made by Ryan.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Today we only had a half day of work! We were originally supposed to have our half day off on Thursday, but because there was supposed to be bad weather, our affiliate was nice enough to switch it to today!

We spent the morning working on the house that we worked on yesterday, finishing up some of the flooring. We met a new crew today, but they were all just as helpful as the day before. We were working on the floors in the living room, but ran into some difficulty with measurements. Brian, one of the workers, told us that this would be a good stopping point and told us we could go home an hour early if we didn't mind.

That extra hour gave us plenty of time to stop at Ihop to celebrate National Pancake Day with a free short stack of pancakes!

We all relaxed on the thirty minute car ride to Greenville, South Carolina where we spent the rest of our day off. Our first stop, Gravitopoia! This was like a trampoline world! The whole room was covered with trampolines. We then headed to our next stop, downtown. Here, we wandered around and enjoyed many shops. We enjoyed the many coffee shops, clothing stores, and specialty shops where we were able to taste test some interesting food!

As a group, we enjoyed some delicious pizza from Bellachino's!

Afterwards, we ventured back to First Baptist Church in Clemson. A few minutes later, we went to Fike Recreation Center in Clemson University to shower. The rest of the night was spent relaxing, playing basketball, and enjoying each other's company.

Day 2 in Clemson, SC, but first day of work. We arrived at the job site at 8:00am after driving around the Habitat complex for 10 minutes lost. In the wet and rainy weather, we were happy to be inside once we got there, but we had to climb through the bright red mud and up a ladder since the stairs had not yet been put in.

Nancy and Pastor Chris were there to welcome us and get us started on our first day. We also met the Monday and Wednesday work crew, which included Brian and Tom, both of whom were extremely helpful in teaching us the ropes. Our first job was to clean and prep the floors by scraping them, sweeping them, and vacuuming them, so we could start putting down the hardwood. In order to breathe, we had to wear white face masks and they encouraged us all to wear safety goggles so our eyes were protected from all of the dust.

Once the house was cleaned out, we were given a tutorial on how to put down the floors. The rest of the day was filled with hammering and sliding the new hardwood floors into place.

Over lunch, Nancy told us about the history behind Habitat for Humanity in Pickens County and some of the families they have worked with in the past. She told us that the house we're working on doesn't yet have an owner, which is rare for Habitat homes, but because it was a homecoming house they built it anyway. A homecoming house is a house that Habitat works on during homecoming at Clemson University. After the week of homecoming, the house, in its entirety (which includes everything up to the drywall of the house), is picked up and moved to its permanent location.

At 4:00pm, our work day was over. We returned to the Clemson First Baptist Church where we were staying and grabbed our shower stuff. We then headed over to Clemson University's FIKE Recreation Center where we are able to take our showers for the week. We're grateful for being able to use such a nice facility to scrub off the dust from our hard days work.

We then headed over to Wendy's where owner, Steve Simoneaux, met us and was kind enough to tell us to order anything we wanted, on him. We all enjoyed our dinners and ate way more than we should have.

By the end of the day, we were happy to return to the Church, settle in, watch a movie and give each other much needed back massages before finally calling it a night!